Am I doing something wrong with BG3? I WANT to like it

Hello internet chums,

I was hoping you guys could help me out with BG3.

I know that according to everyone on Earth, it's like objectively the best RPG of all time or something. So, I bought it day of release and had a go.

I haven't bounced off a game so hard in years.

To give you a little insight: I love RPG'S. Infact, it's been my favourite and main genre for nearly thirty years now. I've played everything from Might and Magic VI to Final Fantasy XIV. Wizardry VIII to Dragon Quest XII. Skyrim to Lost Odyssey. I've played so many thousands of hours of all different flavours of RPG.

I've also been playing D&D for....many years too. I cut my teeth on 3e, loved 4e, and now playing two games of 5e at the moment. My relationship with D&D however isn't very healthy. I hate 5th edition. It's watered down, it's generic, it's too easy, I just don't really like what it's become. Infact, I only play because I know it's really good therapy for one of my friends I play with. He really enjoys playing with our group, so I put up with the games for his sake.

So, coming to BG3. It seems like it's got one thing I love (RPG systems) and one thing I hate (The overuse of 5e mechanics).

I've tried 3 different classes so far (Elf Sorcerer, Dwarf Bard, Gnome Rogue) and none of them really had the wow factor.

I really, really enjoyed the Infinity Engine games way back when, aswell as modern stuff like POE/Tyranny/D:OS1+2...

...So what is it about BG3 that won't click with me? What am I doing wrong? I've got to free Lae'zel twice, got to the Owlbear, got to the druid grove, but I inevitably drop out after a few hours.

If anyone can advise, I dunno, I'd appreciate it.

I'd love to hear what you guys suggesr

Unfortunately, I think if you strongly dislike 5th edition, the game won't be for you. If you'd like to minimize the amount of time you spend in combat and just talk your way into / out of everything, you could try playing on Explorer difficulty. But since you've already dipped in with three different characters and the early game hasn't grabbed you, it's probably time to move on to something else.

You haven't really explained here WHAT you don't like about it. Do you find the story boring? The characters annoying? Is it just that the combat is tedious to you?

Or do you not know, it's just not compelling.

I think if the answer is that you just don't enjoy the combat (which is what I would assume based on restarting 3 times rather than pushing through to see what comes after) you have your answer and since you already know 5e isn't for you it's not likely to get better. Are you able to put up with bad gameplay in an RPG if the story grips you? If that's the case you might want to push on a bit but otherwise you already know why you don't like the game.

well-

it's 5e all the way down, so if that's what grinds your gears- you're gonna have a bad time bud. if you've been through the nautiloid multiple times and the game isn't finding purchase, i'd wager it might be time to bow out.

fwiw if this was your first CRPG rodeo i might recommend otherwise, but it sounds like you know what you like and this ain't it.

I mean, BG3 being great to me has almost nothing to do with the rules or combat, it’s all story, characters and narrative choices. 90% of my enjoyment was in dialogue. I liked the combat too, but not enough to replay a fight more than once before just knocking down difficulty to move forward. I build my characters fairly haphazardly because I don’t know 5e systems well enough to make any mega-builds and I still got through everything steadily enough that the story never stalled.

To be fair, though, when I play tabletop, the groups I play in are like me, the fights are the boring part to us. Numbers being added and substrates have never been my jam, even back in 3e when I first started. As such, edition changes never bothered me too much as I always though of D&D as “improv storytelling” instead of a mechanical exercise, we just ignored rules and often played without books. So maybe a shift in your perspective for BG3 in this way might help?

Also, it’s fine to just not like it too.

Yeah, if you don't like 5e, that's probably going to hinder you. I think that's the most impressive thing with the game. Is how closely they translate and replicate 5e D&D into a video game format.

If you're trying to look for something outside of that, I think it's also a very good Mass Effect game. I think some people can be a bit hyperbolic about the range of narrative choices in the game. It's not D&D in that sense. It's still a video game. It can't be infinitely flexible. It's set on telling you it's story. I think it's more akin to Mass Effect's dialogue wheel and Paragon/Renegade systems. Even in the ways it handles building a party, both in systems and narratively, a lot of it just feels like they took almost just as much from Mass Effect as they did D&D. They've just refined and built on top of it, in more nuanced ways.

You enjoyed D:OS2 and hate 5e. This game is basically a high budget D:OS2 with 5e mechanics. I suggest you just play something else.

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader just came out. It's buggy as hell, but I'm enjoying my time with it.

I think there are two things you could do to get into this game. The first is crank the difficulty all the way up so that you have to really engage with its systems - there's enough going on here that even if you hate the way 5E works in tabletop you could still find some fun in figuring out how to exploit this game.

The second is crank the difficulty all the way down, make it as easy as possible, and just soak in the world and story. Frankly, I'd tell you that the presentation, story, characters, and world are the biggest draws here - if DnD mechanics are going to be the thing that makes or breaks this game for you, there's a little game out there called Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous for you.

I guess this really depends on what you hate about 5E. - if you just think it's too simple, a difficulty that forces you to make the most of everything you have might alleviate that. If you just hate the way 5E works, then cranking the difficulty up is just going to exacerbate that.

Also Baldur's Gate 3 might not be a game for you.

I understand this is what Mass Effect is famous for, but also Mass Effect really just simplifies its dialog choices down to a six-slice pie wheel on the bottom of the screen, and only two of those slices ever actually mattered. And I loved Mass Effect! But I feel like Dragon Age Origins would be a better comparison, and even better than that would be the game that Bioware made and then cribbed from for the next decade and a half - Baldur's Gate 2.

@justin258: I wouldn't know. I haven't played Dragon Age Origins or Baldur's Gate 2. The real-time, auto-combat style of game is probably my least favorite type of game. I've never been able to get into CRPGs or MMOs because of it. If Baldur's Gate 3 wasn't turned based, I don't think I'd have been able to play it.

the game is really long so it may be a bit harder for you to hop onboard if you don't like it from the start - low levels are not as fun as high gameplay-wise. but the more you play, the more you master the system (which is not clean 5e but more like 5e combined with larian's unique style), the more fun and creative mechanics you will find.

if you are stuck with battles that have many of enemies, watch this:

also the story is really impacted by your choices, and according to your post you've barely scratched the surface of that!